Food in MMORPG’s

MikeJT

Food plays a role in most MMORPG’s. It helps us regain health or energy, however the game works, and much like in real life allows us to do more stuff. Games have even gotten to the point where there is a cooking skill, like in World of Warcraft, where higher level characters, combined with rare ingredients, can produce food with lasting benefits.

However, unlike in real life, food is not a necessity in most MMORPG’s. Making food a necessity is not even considered for most developers as something such as eating, which we do every day in our real lives (or at least we should do), is considered too mundane to transfer across into our virtual lives, and is simply just a distraction from all the adventuring we should be doing.

However, I’m going to argue that food can be used as a motivator in an RPG sense, as well as something that can create tension, conflict, and role-playing scenarios.

We can all agree that the action of eating is fairly mundane. We aren’t going to get excited in an MMORPG by having to stop to eat. The lack of our sense of smell and taste in games isn’t going to have us exploring the game world seeking out new culinary delights (although in the future it might - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article6162217.ece). However, the very act of procuring food is what can be used to drive player involvement in an MMORPG.

In reality, most of us can simply walk down to the local shopping centre, and the choice and abundance of food is apparent. It is generally very cheap and widely available. The western world has come to the point where most businesses can spoil almost as much food as they sell.

The majority of us in the Western world don’t have to worry about where our next meal will come from. We aren’t concerned about food supply, or its quality. We just know we can get it when we want it.

This is what adds the opportunity for MMORPGs to use food as a new way to involve players in the world they are playing in.

Food supply can be threatened on both a local, regional, and global scale, giving players something they need to defend. Furthermore, it adds a drain to player wealth. In many games, players can accumulate mass wealth and never have to spend any of it. Introducing food as a necessity will create a drain for all that wealth, albeit a minor one.

It will also open up a new opportunity for commerce within the game. A player may be able to own a farm, or simply purchase food from a market where it is abundant and cheap, and transport it to a town where it is rare and expensive. Local tastes and what is most easily produced locally may differ, and therefore players may profit from buying what is easily produced but otherwise unwanted and transporting it to where the local tastes value the produce more highly.

Conflict can also be generated by making food a necessary item. If a ship at sea is attacked by pirates, and all the food is ransacked from the ships hold, then only what can be hidden from the pirates will be available for players to eat. Do you hold out on your fellow adventurers by hiding the fact that you have food whilst they don’t? Or do you ensure that the food is rationed fairly? On a larger scale, if a neighbouring town has had their crops ruined by a severe storm, do you take pity on them and supply them with aid? Or do you let them starve to punish them for their failure to stock emergency food supplies?

It also enhances other conflict, by giving a sense of urgency to situations. For example, if a city is being sieged, you know you must break the siege before the entire city begins to starve to death.

Finally, it creates an opportunity for players to actually sit down and talk. By forcing the player to stop to eat, it creates an opportune time for them to share stories, plan, joke, organise trade, and discuss matters of importance within the game world.

Forcing the player to stop to eat would go mostly unnoticed for players, so long as food supply is plentiful. It would have very little impact on the game mechanic most of the time. However, for the reasons mentioned above, it would still create opportunities for a more in depth player involvement in the game world.

Thoughts?